


i turned him to gold (i took him higher)

by doji_oji



Series: superomens [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Crowley Saves The Day, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Two Crowleys, but things still go to hell, just not quite as much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2018-10-18 04:21:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10609167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doji_oji/pseuds/doji_oji
Summary: After Sam dies at Cold Oak, Dean tries to summon a crossroads demon.Instead, he gets Anthony J. Crowley.





	1. i turned him to gold (i took him higher)

**Author's Note:**

> yet more superomens bc I'm trash and I lowkey ship dean/crowley. if there's interest i might write a sequel at some point. au from 2.22 "all hell breaks loose pt 2"
> 
> update: I now have a fic tumblr [here](http://doji-oji.tumblr.com)!

Sam is dead. Sam is dead and nothing makes sense anymore. Dean tears through the night, the roar of the Impala’s engine filling his ears as he pushes down on the gas. He should slow down. It’s dangerous, driving this fast. He could get himself killed. He doesn’t give a shit.

Sam is _dead_. And so Dean might as well be.

He stops at the first crossroads he finds, snatches up the little tin box rattling in the passenger seat, and steps out of the car. It’s almost summer, but the air is cold. Dean doesn’t feel it. He walks to the centre of the crossroad with mechanical steps, kneels in the dirt and begins clawing a hole in the earth. When he judges that it’s deep enough, he eases the box into the hole, brushes the dirt back over it, climbs to his feet with suddenly aching bones, and waits. Waits. Waits.

No one is coming. The knowledge is a cold stone settling in his stomach. Dean turns on the spot, frantic; roars, “Oh come on already, show your face, you _bitch_!” But there’s nothing - just him, and silence, and a dirt road splitting in four like compass lines across the earth. Faltering and breathless, he stands alone at the centre of the crossroads, despair rising in his throat. He thinks of Sammy, lying dead and cold on a busted-up mattress, some poor man’s imitation of a bier, and a soft mantra of _please come on please_ falls, unbidden, from his lips, directed at Heaven, Hell, anyone out there left to listen.

After all, if he can’t save Sam, then there’s little choice but to follow – fire the final bullet in the Winchester bloodbath. “Please!” he tries, one last time. For a crushing moment, the world seems suspended; then something like the flapping of wings beats through the quiet.

“Dean,” a voice says behind him, and Dean whirls, heart a jackhammer in his chest.

He expected her, the beautiful woman with the little black dress and the big red eyes. Instead, instinct has him raising his gun at the demon. “You son of a bitch--”

“ _Winchester_ ,” the demon says, yellow eyes glinting in the glow of the Impala’s headlamps. “I know you’re an idiot, but I’d like to think you’re not completely hopeless. Use your eyes.”

Dean’s finger stills on the trigger (impulse; what good would that have done? But Dean needs to shoot something, or he’ll shoot himself). He squints. The demon’s eyes aren’t yellow, after all. They’re gold, pupils slitted like a snake’s. “What are you?” he breathes, uncertainty and a swift, sudden hope duking it out in his chest.

The demon says quietly, and with absolute sincerity, “Right now, your last hope.” He steps forward, further into the pool of light cast by the Impala’s headlamps. The air ripples around him; for a moment, Dean sees wings, stretching out in the shadows. Then they’re gone again, and it’s just a guy standing there, eyes wide and luminous. “The name’s Crowley. Fallen angel.”

A thousand replies come to Dean’s lips. He considers telling the guy to fuck outta here with that bullshit, then realises that he believes every single word. Maybe this is what it feels like, to be one of those crazies who believes in angels and chemtrails and Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich. Maybe despair is all it takes. “I want to make a deal.”

Crowley scoffs. “Yeah, not happening, mate. Now take me to Sam.”

Dean does.

*

Dean drives, and while he does, Crowley tells him a story about God, and the Devil, and Sam. When it’s finished, Dean drives a little faster.

*  
Crowley sweeps into the crumbling house like he owns it, pulling off his coat and tossing it over the back of a chair as he goes. He stops for a moment, looks around the kitchen, and makes a noise of disgust. Then he turns to Dean and says, “Where?”

When Dean steps into the bedroom, he lets himself hope, for a split second, that Sam will be back; he’ll make some sarcastic comment about Dean looking like shit, and then they’ll drink beer and nothing will have changed. But the hope fades in the face of reality: Sam, waxy and pale and still.

There’s a long moment where Crowley just looks, stony silent and utterly intent. Dean wonders what he’s seeing. Then Crowley says quietly, “How did he die?”

“Stabbed.” In his mind, Dean sees the bastard run forward, a knife in his hand, and then Sam on his knees. “In the back.”

“How poetic,” Crowley replies dryly. “Get him up, then.”

Gently, Dean eases Sammy up into a sitting position, lets his brother’s icy forehead rest in the curve of his neck. Crowley sits behind Sam, frowns at his frayed and filthy jacket, then rips it, and the shirt underneath, open as easily as if it were paper, exposing the vast pale expanse of Sam’s back, littered with cuts and scars -- and, between his shoulder-blades, a gaping wound, mottled and bruised, like it hasn’t had time to bleed. Dean presses his face into Sam’s lank hair and watches as Crowley gently lays a finger at the bottom of the jagged canyon the knife made in Sam’s skin. And, breath catching in his throat, he watches as Crowley trails his finger up along the length of the wound, the edges knitting together in the wake of his touch, like he’s zipping Sam back into himself. “Sammy?” Dean whispers, but Crowley shakes his head.

“Not yet. Lay him back down.”

Dean does, folding Sam down onto the mattress with reverent hands. He’s still pale, but the sheen is gone from his skin, and pink is bleeding back into his lips and cheeks. Crowley half-kneels on the mattress, leaning over Sam, then lowers his head and presses his lips to Sam’s. Dean feels like he should look away, but he can’t. In this moment, right here, he knows he’s watching a miracle.

Crowley pulls back from the kiss, presses his hand to Sam’s cheek, and says sharply, “ _Wake up_.”

And Sam does, with a great shuddering gasp, back arching off the mattress as his lungs fill with air. Dean shoves Crowley unceremoniously aside in his rush to get to Sam, to touch him, feel him here and living and real.

“Dean?” Sam wheezes, eyes darting around the room until they finally settle on Dean. “W’happened?”

Dean lets out a breathy noise halfway between a laugh and a sob, and strokes Sam’s hair away from his forehead. “Hey, Sammy. You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

He helps Sam sit up, under his own steam this time, and peels away the ripped ruins of his clothes. Then Sam sees Crowley, watching quietly from the corner of the room, and he grabs at Dean’s shirt. “Dean,” he gasps.

“It’s okay,” Dean soothes, acutely aware of how much explaining he’s going to have to do. “He’s… on our side.”

“Your eyes--” Sam starts, but then Crowley does the trick with the wings again, and Sam immediately turns into a thirteen-year-old girl meeting her crush for the first time, and Dean is too happy to be embarrassed.

*

Crowley looks at Azazel’s body, then at Dean. “Well,” he says. “Guess that’s that done, then.” He looks after the dark cloud of demons that escaped from the gate. “Nothing’s ever simple, though, is it?”

Dean huffs a laugh, wincing when the movement jars his aching head. Wordlessly, Crowley steps up and lays a hand on his forehead, and the pain flares then dies. Dean scrounges up a grin, despite the wasteland of bodies all around them and the disaster heading for the horizon. “Thanks. For everything.”

Crowley shoves his hands in his pockets and nods awkwardly. “Yeah. You too.” He jerks his head back over his shoulder. “I should probably get going. Things to do, people to see.”

“Right, of course,” Sam says.

Crowley holds out a hand. Sam shakes it, and then Crowley turns to Dean, who hesitates a moment before saying, “C’mere, you,” and grabbing him up in a bear hug. Crowley lets out an indignant squeak; when Dean lets him go, he steps back and brushes himself off, looking like an affronted cat.

“Right. Well.” He clears his throat. “I expect we’ll see each other again sooner or later. But just in case.” He holds up a phone. After a moment, Dean realises that it’s his, and that his jacket pocket is suddenly empty. Crowley flips it open, ignoring Dean’s protests, and types something. “My number. If you need to get in touch. Or… whatever.”

“Or whatever,” Dean agrees, taking his phone back.

Crowley’s lips quirk up into a quick, shy smile, then he turns on his heel and slips silently into the night. Dean watches him go, then turns to Sam. “So.”

Sam’s eyebrows jump up on his forehead. “So,” he replies. “Now what?”

Ellen approaches. “Well, the Yellow-Eyed Demon might be dead, but a lot more got through that gate.”

“How many you think?” Dean asks.

Sam scrunches his face up and shakes his head. “A hundred. Maybe two hundred? It’s an army. He’s unleashed an army.”

“Hope to hell you boys are ready,” Bobby says grimly. “‘Cause the war has just begun.”

Sam smiles wryly. “Sure. But we’ve got an angel on our side now. Fallen angel,” he backtracks. “Crowley’s kind of our smoking gun now, right?”

“Well then.” Dean grins at him, and tosses the now-useless Colt into the trunk of the Impala and slams the lid down. “We’ve got work to do.”


	2. timestamp #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a lil timestamp/missing scene for "i turned him to gold (i took him higher)". sam geeks out about angels and bobby meets crowley. that's it that's the plot

"Angels," Sam says reverently. "I always—but—you— _angels_." He's a mess, wrapped up in an old blanket Dean found in a closet (that _should_ be more dust than wool at this point, considering the state of everything else in the house, and yet is mysteriously clean and soft) and Crowley's coat (which happens to fit perfectly across his shoulders, and that's pretty fucking impressive considering that if Sam is Sasquatch, Crowley is a hamster by comparison), huddled in a rickety old chair that groans alarmingly under him (but somehow doesn't break), hands cupped around a chipped mug of tea (that's still steaming even though it's been sitting untouched for the past twenty minutes). 

(Crowley, Dean is beginning to suspect, might well, in fact, be a big softie.)

" _Angels_ ," Sam says again, turning big gooey eyes on Crowley, who shifts awkwardly where he's leaning against the half-rotted counters. 

" _Fallen_ angel." 

"So if angels are real," Sam continues, undaunted and uncharacteristically oblivious to Crowley's discomfort (but the kid  _did_ just come back from the dead  _and_ find out angels are real, all in the space of about thirty seconds, so Dean is willing to cut him a little goddamn slack, okay?), "that means... God?"

And there it is. The G-bomb. The Big Kahuna. The one Dean has been desperately trying not to think about ever since Crowley first stepped out of the darkness towards him. Trust Sam to go straight for the jugular. Sure, there was that whole mess with the "avenging angel" in Rhode Island which left lingering doubts, but those weren't anything that couldn't be cleared up with a stiff drink or six. But if Crowley is an honest-to-God—fuck—angel ( _fallen_ angel, whatever) and angels are made by God, then God is real. And if God is real... 

Well. What Dean wouldn't give to have words with the guy.

"Ah," Crowley says, and Dean gets the impression he's not nearly as calm as he's trying to appear. "The biggest question of them all. The short answer is, yes, He exists."

"And the long answer?" Dean asks.

"Is long," Crowley replies without missing a beat, "and we have more pressing concerns right now. Azazel? Demon army? I don't suppose any of this is ringing a bell?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it." Dean gives himself a moment to drop his head in his hands, fingers scrubbing through his hair. "We should head to Bobby's," he starts, and oh, fuck. 

Bobby.

"Where is Bobby, anyway?" Sam asks, twisting in his seat to look around the room, as though he's expecting Bobby to pop out from behind an ugly lampshade or something. "Last thing I remember before—" he breaks off, then takes a deep breath and soldiers on, "well,  _before_ , is you and Bobby walking towards me."

"I, uh," Dean starts, then bites his lip. 

" _Dean_." 

"I may have told him to get out. Back when, uh. You know. I kind of freaked out a little."

"Enough to drive straight to the nearest crossroads," Crowley agrees, and  _what the fuck_? Maybe if Dean tries hard enough, he'll be able to shoot death rays out of his eyes because now Sam is shaking his head and turning the big gooey eyes on _him_ and  _fuck_ , fucking  _Crowley_ —

"Dean?" someone calls from the front door.

It's Bobby. Of course it fucking is. Because God is real and he hates Dean Winchester, apparently.

"Dean, you here?" Footsteps creak on the hardwood, and the kitchen door screeches open. "Dean—" The words die on Bobby's lips as he takes in the room. And yeah, Dean has to admit, from his perspective, it probably doesn't look good: Sam, back from the dead; Crowley, whose golden eyes glitter in the half-light; Dean, probably looking like the guiltiest fuck in the entire world. He isn't at all surprised that Bobby's instinctive reaction is to go straight for the shotgun. It would have been his, too. 

"You wanna explain to me what the hell is goin' on here, boy?" Bobby growls, gun trained squarely on Crowley's head, who, for his part, just raises a perfect dark eyebrow.

"Dean and I made a deal," he says, at the exact same time as Dean blurts, "Bobby, I swear, it's not what it looks like—Goddammit, Crowley!"

Dean's starting to get the distinct impression that the situation's about to implode on them, and even though he's pretty sure it'd take more than a chestful of buckshot to drop an angel, he's not willing to test that theory just yet either; so he gets up and comes to stand in front of Bobby, blocking his view of Crowley. "It's not what it looks like," Dean says again, then glances over his shoulder at Crowley. "Fuck, dude, just do the wing thing again."

Crowley rolls his eyes and obliges. 

(And as it turns out, it does, in fact, take more than a chestful of buckshot to drop an angel.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the family that shoots each other stays together
> 
> i have a spn tumblr at clairesncvaks so come send me prompts or something idk??


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